Abstract
The wheat UniGene sets, derived from over one million Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) in the NCBI GenBank, offer a platform for identifying differentially expressed genes in wheat seeds. This report illustrates a means to efficiently utilize this public database for gene expression (transcriptome) profiling of developing wheat seed. Using a data mining tool known as Digital Differential Display (DDD), thirteen pair-wise comparisons were performed on seven seed cDNA libraries from five varieties at various seed development stages. DDD identified 46 seed-specific UniGene sets, excluding the well characterized “housekeeping” and seed storage protein genes. Additionally, seed- and developmentally-specific UniGenes were identified. Some of these genes encode for proteins such as purothionins, serpins, α-amylase inhibitors, lipid transfer proteins, and other unknown but novel gene sequences. Specifically, the wheat serpin and β-purothionin precursor were found to be expressed at higher levels in hard varieties than soft varieties. This study supports the starting premise that by implementing in-silico analysis of the wheat UniGene database, it is possible to rapidly create transcriptional profiles of known and novel genes in developing seeds.
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